Friday, January 24, 2014

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sutton-turner/12/525/91bChief Executive of Waseef Barwa Real Estate Group - Doha, Qatar Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Real Estate industry June 2010 – May 2011 (1 year) About Waseef: Waseef was established in Q3 2009 from the merger between Barwa Property Management, Barwa Facilities Management and Barwa Hotels. It currently performs the property, facilities and leasing management for 10,000 residential units in 2011. In 2012, they will add to this massive portfolio with the addition of Barwa Financial District - a 9 tower and almost 700,000 sq. meter BUA mixed use property that will be the world headquarters of Qatar Petroleum. Waseef will expand the activities of Barwa in the local market while simultaneously cutting servicing costs and enhancing performance and quality. About BARWA: BARWA is one of Qatar’s world leading real estate and investment companies, established in 2005 with the mission of contributing to the sustainable growth of Qatar by investing in businesses, services and expertise. With business interests in real-estate, infrastructure, business services and financial services, BARWA's drive and determination comes from us working in tandem with the Qatari Government’s overarching development plan as laid out in Qatar Vision 2030, which stresses human, social, economic and environmental development. BARWA aims to be one of the most successful real estate and investment companies in the world, with a home in Qatar and a business operating around the globe. BARWA's flagship projects include: Barwa Financial District, Barwa Commercial Avenue, Barwa Al Sadd and Barwa Al Doha. Supporting these projects is a group of Business services such as Project Management, Development Management and Asset Management through specialized centers of excellence.
There's been relatively little to find in the English language coverage of Barwa Real Estate Group but there was this June 2013 Reuters piece about how the company planned to sell $7.1 billion in assets to reduce debt and mention is made of layoffs in 2011 due to a restructuring.

At least Barwa Commercial Avenue, Barwa Al Sadd and the Barwa City projects (just the City or the VIllage, too?) look like they're assets that are still associated with Waseef. These were apparently some of the assets sold to Qatari Diar, or were planned to be. If someone can confirm that the sale did take place that would be handy.

No, dear reader, you didn't misread that number of $7.1 billion. A bit more from the article:

... The sales will be completed by the end of the year, the company said.Last October Barwa said it planned to sell assets worth 16 billion riyals ($4.4 billion) in Qatar and Egypt to pay down loans.The company laid off about 90 employees in a restructuring move in 2011.Barwa, which laid off about 90 employees in a restructuring exercise in 2011, has properties in France, Switzerland and Britain, focusing on retail, office, hospitality and residential developments.

Finally, it is worth noting that despite the state’s effort to invest billions into infrastructure and real estate development, not all Qatari based developers are benefitting from these injections. Mega property developer Barwa Real Estate posted a 40 per cent drop in net profit for the first nine months of 2013 even after receiving $7.1 billion in support from the state to reduce its debts.

5 comments:

Winston
said...

The deeper this goes, the more it looks like Mars Hill is run like the mafia, in terms of the exchange of people and money. Mars Hill, as has been clearly demonstrated, is primarily run as a business with a little gospel thrown in for good measure.

Nonetheless, after some digging, Turner and his brother Robert H. are quite well to do, and gave sizable campaign contributions to political figures in the past, at least as reported in 2006.

http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/155/

ROBERT H. TURNER

The largest individual contributor to Bell’s gubernatorial campaign is Austin real estate financier, Robert H. Turner, who gave $52,500 to finance Bell’s race for the governorship in 2005. Mr. Turner and his brother John Sutton Turner both specialize in the low-income housing field in one way or another, yet they appear to be relative novices at making political contributions.

However, they both grew up around the same time as Bell in the elite Highland Park area of Dallas, where Chris Bell grew up, so some personal connection may explain Robert Turner’s large donation.

Robert H. Turner is found in the Texas Secretary of State’s database as associated with literally dozens of different companies in Austin, Lampasas, Dallas, Chicago, and in several different states.

The only other contribution that can be positively associated with Robert H. Turner is a contribution he gave to Republican Robert B. Talton in 2004.

However, there are two other donations to Republicans that seem to be from the same Robert Turner, but that I cannot positively identify as coming from him: one to Republican Ben Bentzin and another to Republican Richard J. Phillips—both of them made in 2005. Obviously there are several Robert Turner’s in Austin, so these latter two should be considered in that light.

What's the company Sutton owns (along with many, many others) with his brother? Wentwood Capital Advisors, LP

All this is confirmed on Turner's Linkedin profile (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sutton-turner/12/525/91b):

Chief Executive and FounderMission Housing Management, LLC

January 2004 – December 2006 (3 years)

New company formed out of the portfolio of The Wentwood Companies to focus on property management and construction of low-income housing apartment communities. Grew spin off from 240 to 330 employees in 38 offices across 11 states with diversified client base.

Start-up property management and construction company that was spun off from Graewood Capital Partners, LP and that grew from 2 to 240 employees. Divested company of Property Management and Construction Divisions to form Mission Housing and Madera Construction.

• Achieved average gross margin of 24%, including a start-up year loss, with gross revenues averaging $1.5M per year for six years.• Took start-up from 5 to 24 properties in 7 states by focusing initiatives around team of turnaround employees who took over and managed properties quickly in any U.S. city – in 48 hours or less.• Cut employee annual churn to 46% with industry average above 100% by initiating Team Member programs, including 401K, long term disability, performance bonus system, Work from Home program, and family health coverage.

Turner's skills are being put to great use at Mars Hill. He's setting up trusts, LLC's, and other investment accounts to protect and hide Mars Hill's assets (King of like what Andy did for the Warden in The Shawshank Redemption) God knows he's done wonders for Mark Driscoll personally. It's pretty clear Turner is teaching Driscoll all the tricks of the trade, i.e. purchasing properties under fake trust accounts, and other "100% legal" practices. "But oh, how the money flowed in," Red from The Shawshank Redemption.

We we need is for current and former Mars Hill insiders to post emails, documents, and other things. That'd be helpful.